Tanner Roark carries his glove from the dugout to the mound in his right hand, like he is taking a briefcase from the dugout to the center of the diamond. He moves his workdays along rapidly — catch the ball, nod at the catcher, hit another corner. He seldom changes expression and never seems affected by what happens around him, like the standing ovation the Nationals Park crowd showered him with at the start of the ninth inning on Saturday afternoon. He has kept doing all of that until he became, for the first month of the 2014 season, the Washington Nationals’ best pitcher.
The title may be unlikely, but who could argue after Roark’s performance Saturday? He led the Nationals to a 4-0 victory over the San Diego Padres with a two-hit shutout, the team’s first complete game of the season. Roark retired the first 16 batters he faced, walked one, struck out eight and needed only 105 pitches for the first complete game and shutout of his brief, stunning big league career.
Roark, an unassuming right-hander from Wilmington, Ill., entered spring training as a candidate, not a lock, for the Nationals’ rotation. He now leads Nationals starters with a 2.76 ERA, and he trails only Stephen Strasburg, 34 to 32 2/3, in innings pitched — but Strasburg has made six starts to his five.
Roark emerged as a call-up last August, going 7-1 with a 1.51 ERA, and it is starting to seem like it may not be a fluke. In 35 career innings at Nationals Park, he has allowed one earned run. Roark has made 10 major league starts. In five, he has not allowed an earned run.
Saturday afternoon, Roark finished his start by striking out Jedd Gyorko, San Diego’s cleanup hitter, with a 92-mph fastball. He punched his glove, pointed at catcher Sandy Leon and finally cracked a smile.
Roark threw whatever he wanted wherever he wanted. His two-seam fastball moved with a wicked tail, heading straight toward the hips of left-handed batters before it darted back to the inside corner. His curveball started breaking above the belt and crashed into the dirt around home plate like a meteor. His change-up faded off the plate, but only after tempting eager batters to swing.
Roark cruised through five innings without allowing a base runner. With one out in the sixth, only one Padres hitter had managed to hit the ball out of the infield, and he walked to the plate. Catcher Rene Rivera, who had flown to the warning track in his first at-bat, flared a soft line drive into center. He allowed only two more singles, one by Gyorko in the seventh and one in the ninth by Chris Denorfia. After the only walk he issued, with one out in the eighth, Roark induced a double play with the very next pitch.
Roark thrives because of how well he reads hitters’ swings and how he mixes his pitches. But the quality of those pitches, his pure stuff, may be undersold. He hit 94 mph with his fastball, and his curveball is a 12-to-6 nightmare for opposing hitters.
The Nationals’ awakening offense pounded 10 hits and staked Roark to a three-run lead in the first inning. One night after slapping up 11 runs, the Nationals struck out immediately against Andrew Cashner, a hard-throwing right-hander who carried a 2.12 ERA into Saturday. Anthony Rendon sparked a one-out rally with a single to left, and singles from Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche gave the Nationals their first run.
Ian Desmond continued the rally with an RBI double that proved he may be ditching his early-season slump. With a smooth swing, Desmond poked Cashner’s 95-mph fastball to the right field corner and scored Werth.
Before Friday night, Desmond had notched only two hits — one double, one single — to right field in the Nationals’ first 22 games. He ripped a double to right field Friday night. Saturday, he added another. He finished Saturday still hitting just .242, but with five hits in his last eight at-bats.